FIGS. 1A and 1B depict air-bearing surface (ABS) and plan views of a conventional magnetic recording head 10. The magnetic recording transducer 10 may be a perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) head. The conventional magnetic recording transducer 10 may be a part of a merged head including the write transducer 10 and a read transducer (not shown). Alternatively, the magnetic recording head may be a write head including only the write transducer 10. The conventional transducer 10 includes an underlayer 12 that may include a leading shield, side gap 14, side shields 16, top (write) gap 17, optional top shield 18 and main pole 20.
The side shields 16 are separated from the main pole 20 by a side gap 14. The side shields 16 extend a distance back from the ABS. The gap 14 between the side shields 16 and the main pole 20 may have a substantially constant thickness. Thus, the side shields 16 are conformal with the main pole 20.
The main pole 20 resides on an underlayer 12 and includes sidewalls 22 and 24. The underlayer 12 may include a leading shield. The sidewalls 22 and 24 of the conventional main pole 20 form an angle with the down track direction at the ABS. Thus, the top of the main pole 20 is wider than its bottom. In addition, sidewalls of the pole tip forms a chisel angle with the yoke direction (i.e. perpendicular to the ABS) at and near the ABS. Typically, the chisel angle is constant at and near the ABS.
Although the transducer 10 functions, performance of the transducer 10 may suffer at higher recording densities. For example, in the range of close to or above one Tb/in2, the main pole 20, side gaps 14 and side shields 16 are scaled down in size. In this size range, the conventional transducer 10 suffers from a reduced write field. Further, reductions in the depth of the side shields 16 in the yoke direction (perpendicular to the plane of the page in FIG. 1A) may result in a significant increase in the wide area track erasure. Thus, performance of the conventional transducer 10 may suffer at higher recording densities.